Archive for the ‘multinational’ Category

TAIPEI (Reuters) – When Bernard Liu was looking for people to join his team of equity researchers at JPMorgan in Taiwan last year, he found a labor market rich in engineers but lacking in people qualified for the service sector.

Below: Taipei, Taiwan (臺北市)

In the end, it took him a whole year to fill the three posts.

“It’s typically a much more mixed skillset and unfortunately on some of the critical skills, candidates sometimes are lacking,” said Liu, whose company employs about 550 staff in Taiwan working in investment banking, securities and asset management. “It’s actually quite a handicap for Taiwan in the integration in the global economy.”

Managers like Liu are feeling the effects of a brain drain of talent from Taiwan to more global economies like the United States, Hong Kong and China.

Multinational companies also complain that candidates have weak English skills, a lack of talent in management and insufficient expertise in high-level research.

These deficiencies are hampering Taiwan as it tries to transform itself from a manufacturing economy into one that offers more sophisticated financial, legal and other business services.

“Some Taiwanese lawyers we know prefer to work in Hong Kong or China nowadays because the markets are hot,” said Jack Huang, partner-in-chief in Taipei of global law firm Jones Day.

For decades, Taiwan has profited from contract manufacturing, making electronic products for brands such as Dell and Texas Instruments. But, as a growing China takes on some of that manufacturing, Taiwan could be left behind.